Hokies Will Not Play East Carolina in 2019

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Virginia Tech announced it will not travel to play East Carolina in 2019. That game against the Pirates is canceled, and Tech will add a seventh home game in its place. That opponent and date is unknown at this time. Moreover, the Hokies will "opt out" of the 2023 and 2025 contests in Greenville.

1) I have heard that we are playing Wisconsin for like 15 years. It hasn't happened. The narrative I've heard is that Wisconsin just keeps pushing the series back. It doesn't sound like they are actually going to step up and play us. I'm tired of the goalpost shifting and I want to just say to heck with it and remove it from the schedule. If what I've said doesn't reflect the reality then please, someone, tell me this is wrong because I've been believing it for almost half a lifetime

2) After high school, a few people I knew went to Wisconsin. When they were there they turned into the biggest and most asinine douchebags I've ever claimed as friends. I no longer claim them as friends, and wish nothing but mid-major sisters of the poor for their opponents. Wisconsin has a longstanding tradition of having the worst OOC opponents in FBS and I hope their reputation of cupcake-home-game-scheduling douchebaggery is maintained into posterity.

Interesting. The Badgers fans I know couldn't be nicer, as well as nearly everyone I met in Sconnieland when I visited last summer. I want that home and home to happen so bad. I would travel up there in a heartbeat.

You will see this game, this upset and this sign next on ESPN Sportscenter. Virginia Tech 31 Miami 7

Whit Babcock says the seventh home game in 2019 is not finalized yet. Would anticipate it'd be an FCS opponent. That' be two on the #Hokies' schedule. So that's a downer for VT fans wanting to see a good opponent.— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) December 22, 2018

Patterson is 1-for-5 for 9 yards and 0 TDs in his career. Hooker is 0-for-0 for 0 yards and 0 TDs in his career.

So no, I wouldn't consider either of them "returning" starting-caliber QBs. Not that they aren't good prospects, but if either of them are starting next year that will mean both Jackson and Willis took a step back.

That's not entirely accurate. After all the teams that are normally eligible (6-6/6-5 or better, max 1 FCS win) are selected for bowl games, if there are any slots remaining they fill in this order:

1. 6-6/6-5, max 2 FCS wins
2. 6-7 teams that either played AT Hawaii OR lost in their conference championship game
3. Teams with 6 or more wins that are in their last year of transition to FBS, such as Liberty this year
4. 5-7 teams in order of APR

So while it's not a situation we want to see Tech in, it's possible for the Hokies to become bowl eligible at 6-6 with two FCS wins.

Babcock said games at home with ECU still scheduled, though he added that he'd be "surprised" if Pirates came up to play those. Said they talked about neutral site game in 2019 with ECU but couldn't make it happen. #Hokies— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) December 22, 2018

dominance over all NC schools? an away game relatively close to the 757 that we could bring recruits to? Just spit-balling here.

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

Everyone likes to play in front of their family and friends. Being able to say we will have a significant number of games in NC (or within x miles from their home, or however the coaches want to sell in different situations), over the course of their time at VT is definitely a selling point.

It also made it easier to get certain recruits up to an additional game. Etc. Spreading games around in your recruiting footprint is generally a good thing.

If only we were in a conference with four schools in North Carolina, and played two of them annually...

Sarcasm aside, the ECU deal was made long before NC2VT became a big push, and also before the ACC jacked up our schedule so we always had UNC and Duke at home in the same years. The recruiting reasons for this series were minimal.

I am not opposed to playing a low level team (there are instances where I would be but that would require some crazy stuff that's not likely to happen with the CFP). I just don't think we need to play the same low level team for 90 years. Unless it's LOLUVA.

The games have already been scrubbed from the future schedule on hokiesports.com. Still haven't added the Marshall games, though. Still need to adjust the 2024 schedule, but we're probably just waiting to see if Wisconsin really will play us this time, or postpone again.

With as how bad the rest of our home slate is, I might be ok putting a floater out there for UCF and see if they'd be interested. Even though they aren't P5, losing to them isn't a debacle and they need all the quality P5 opponents they can get. Seems like a win-win

King Alum of the House Hokie, the First of His Name, Khal of the Turkey Legs, The rightful Heir to the Big Board, the Unbanned, Breaker of Trolls and Father of Gritty

Man, I would have loved to have been a part of these negotiations... or just a fly on the wall..

VT: 2019 game should be played in Blacksburg.
ECU: Absolutely not.
VT: Then you need to pay the penalty for the breech of contract.
ECU: Haha, you think we breeched the contract? Sue us.
VT: not necessary. By the way, we will no longer be playing any games in Greenville.
ECU: So, you're this pissed that you're going to pay the huge fee to cancel all those games.
VT: cancellation fee is not necessary. Contract is already breached.
ECU: come on, please be reasonable.
VT: I was.

I don't know if you meant this, but I love that in your hypothetical negotiation, the pirates spelled 'breeched' with two 'e's as in 'cannon part' whereas Whit spelled 'breached' correctly, with an 'e' and an 'a' as in 'broke the terms of'.

ETA: after looking more closely you have whit getting it wrong first, but correcting it later. So close.

If I could find it, I'd try to post the pic wedding pic of MacGruber about to take a dump on Kunth's bodybag at the end of the movie (with MacGruber being Whit & Kunth obviously being the entire ECU series). But I can't find it....

Kind of funny too how the ECU message skips right to the part where they explain away their decision not to play earlier this year. It's blatant that Whit is pissed about the situation and ECU knows it.

The 7th home game will most likely be in October next year. The game originally against ECU in September is now open for an ACC opponent. VT opens with Furman and ODU next season. #Hokies— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) December 22, 2018

Duke and BC are the only other ACC teams we play with an open date on Sept. 21st. I don't mind playing GT early with a new HC and system.

Christmas came early. It will be enjoyable to see ECU's response over the next week. When will they avoid coming to the home games here in Blacksburg? Will they do it now or the week of the game again?

ECU and VT are breaking up. Would be great to replace them with Virginia, Maryland, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Clemson, Georgia, FSU, Florida, LSU, Ole Miss, Miss St, Oklahoma, or Alabama. Whoever has openings. Even if we have to go 2 for 1. Do it !

Yeah...none of those teams are going to travel to Greensville, except maybe UVA.

Lmao, right? I saw that and almost spit my coffee. Your program is hot garbage right now, just fired your coach, coming off a 3-9 season, and you say bring on the SEC? They must be gluttons for punishment. The only thing more glorious would have been saying We Want Bama!

...and the reason we can't schedule teams like Tennessee is because they scurred. It's no secret that in spite of their reputation, SEC teams pretty much refuse to play power 5 teams in a non-neutral stadium. So yes, it's not crazy to think Tennessee would schedule a home and home with ECU before us.

I have a ton of Hokie friends. They should all be ashamed about this scheduling decision. And to think ECU raised money for their Hokie friends after the shootings there... @WhitBabcock@VT_Football— Brian Bailey (@bbaileywnct) December 22, 2018

And here is the media take Alum is always talking about. Fuck this asshole.

That's it. Let's start a kickstarter to give them their fucking 100k back. I'm so incredibly tired of them using that to win some type of perception war over this issue. We should send them a check plus interest and tell them to go fuck themselves on the "for" line on the check.

I'm so disgusted by how they are using that to try Nd make Tech look bad. Fuck ECU so hard.

That may be true but to have lowlifes like this guy continually using that donation as some sort of virtue signaling, and clutching his pearls over us moving on after what we went through drives me insane. It's so low. I'd rather us cut our nose off to spite our face on this one.

Maybe attach a letter with the check that says how appreciative we were for the donation but did not realize it would be used as perpetual moral hostage reasoning. It reminds me of the phone call I got on the morning of April 16th from a friend in West Ambler Johnston which makes me want to fight this reporter.

Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding. This reporter is making me nuts. Like I said in the Gift from Whit thread, they are using April 16 the same way that Danny Kaye pointed to his arm every time he wanted Bing Crosby to do something in White Christmas. Bringing up something that any decent human being would have done in the same situation just to get their way and try to make themselves look better.

When Mark Herzlich played for BC and had cancer, Tech made a donation for him. We didn't use it as a publicity thing or an ego boost to make us look good. No, we did it because it was the right thing to do. We wanted to be supportive in his situation.

Decent people take care of their friends and do what it takes to be supportive. I have dropped everything for my friends and loved ones when they needed it and never thought twice about what I was doing and never thought about holding my actions over their heads. I have also been on the receiving end of friends doing any and everything they could for me. I am appreciative of their actions and support but I know their reasons for what they did were the same as my reasons---you take care of those you love.

While I don't wish anything overly catastrophic on this Brian Bailey idiot (I'm not heartless), I hope that if he ever finds himself in a situation where something terrible has happened to him and he needs support that he has better friends than the type of "friend" he is. I hope that his friends don't hold their kindness over his head for the rest of his life. Although Karma is a bitch, so it would serve him right.

You know, I'm never mad when some rando fan, especially on twitter, offers a dumb insulting opinion. It's par for the course on twitter. But I maintain that media figures, no matter how local or minor, have a higher obligation to think before spewing their bullshit out in the open. His platform gives him some legitimacy, such that even some reasonable ECU fans will now be parroting this garbage talking point because of him.

You would think, wouldn't you. They should. But media folks are like other folks... Some are idiots, some are unreasonable, some are flawed, some have poor management (seriously, that his editor doesn't sit him down is perhaps moat disturbing), etc.

I hate this fucking bullshit. Fuck that guy. I'm at a loss for words. I would fucking love to mail them a check back with a fruit basket and a card that says go suck a frozen turd. Fuck their handout and fuck their football program. And fuck that writer. He needs to edit his tweet to say he had Hokie friends but they realized he was a fucking douchebag.

Cool. We're not ashamed, but then again we haven't done anything shameful- like bring 32 murder victims into a discussion about a sports game https://t.co/7SaWuPogfY— W🎄rtooth (@HokieWartooth) December 22, 2018

I'm not sure if this has already been posted. I couldn't find it. But I found this bullshit from a person who calls himself "Stephen Igoe" at 247 and it pissed me off so much I have to make you mad with me. Sorry. (He, too, mentions the shooting.)

This is just about the most biased thing I've ever read. He spends the entire time trying to appeal to your emotions but never actually offering any evidence.

They sent an email at 10:26 AM the day they bolted for Florida

Give me a break. An email? You acknowledge that we offered to set up housing for you. But you respond via email and then say we didn't get back to you before you hit the road? Something as urgent as this and all you do is send a fucking email? Wanted to save the phone battery for the impending storm? Tough shit.

I just read it. Here's what gets me the most from these articles and fan comments. It's the constant desire to claim moral high ground. They constantly bring up the 100k donation and the safety of the athletes during the storm. It's a pathetic attempt to avert attention away from any rational discussion.

I had some pretty vitriolic comments on this subject earlier. At this point I wish the entire Hokie nation would simply ignore anything ECU related. If they want to sue then let them sue. I'm done with them. Not wasting anymore time. Let's let Whit handle this with the lawyers.

These writers who keep standing on the April 16th donation should be fucking ashamed. If someone pulls that card to my face I'm afraid of how I'll react.

There is such a thing as media bias/agenda reporting. It's unfortunate, but it's amazing how often articles are written to emphasize certain aspects of news (often pushing people's emotional buttons), and de-emphasize others. The art of just reporting the news, with all the pertinent facts, is becoming a rarity.

ECU can fuck right off for all I care. You can't go an article without them referencing the Massacre to justify them being in the right. That's all you need to know about them.

I'm much happier playing bumfuck who gives a shot FCS than playing them ever again. And it's not like they have even been competitive the last few meetings. We are clearly a class above them, we have no business playing down to their level again. The fact they are so offended about our cancellation is telling for how much they needed us in the end. We will get by just fine trying to replace them. They'll struggle to find anyone on our level willing to play them in Greenville.

King Alum of the House Hokie, the First of His Name, Khal of the Turkey Legs, The rightful Heir to the Big Board, the Unbanned, Breaker of Trolls and Father of Gritty

Miss Karma, you tapped danced on our heads for the last three years, now its time to pay a visit to Blacksburg. See you there!!!

This is the karma, you dumbass.

Best payback we can give the Hokies.

Everyone who is unhappy about this game cancellation be sure to show up to the game we replace them. A SELLOUT would be the sweetest revenge. 50,000 plus Pirate fans loud and proud showing them what they will be missing.

Yes, because we will be watching some noon game on CBS Sports Network (at best) against some crap team that no one has heard of.

Who do they think was actually filling the stands at those games?

What has changed, besides Beamer and Weaver? What happened?

There has got to be more to it than the hurricane game...just saying.
This would not even be considered in the past, to strong a bound between the two schools.

What bond? Even though people keep throwing out there that the series dates back to 1956, it doesn't. There was one game in 1956, and then we didn't play them again until 1987. We played most years 1987-2000 (only playing in even years after 1994), and then didn't start things up until the current series in 2007.

There is no bond. They were convenient opponents to fill out the schedule. They got lucky that they were scheduled to be the first game in 2007.

Just overall, a bunch of their fans seem to be buying into the Power 6 bullshit that the American keeps trying to shove out there. They don't realize that we're not on their level. They don't realize that the SEC schools they want to play are another level above us.

Yeah we won't give a shit if ECU sells out every game next year. We don't want them on our schedule. Bye Felicia.

This bond is the oft repeated favor we perennially owe them due to a $100k check they gave us after the Massacre. They kept our $300k fee this year despite cancelling the game on us. Yeah we owe them nothing going forward.

They won't get any SEC team to play on Greenville. Won't happen. Maybe a game in Charlotte, but even then, it's not likely. If they get a matchup, it's a tune-up for their conference slate. In fact, outside NCSU and UNC being politically pressured into playing them (almost guaranteed to happen now that we gave them the finger) it's unlikely they'll find any power conference teams really willing to go play there. And with the P5 now being incentivised to schedule within itself, it's incredibly likely they're going to be permanently left behind.

Too bad so sad.

King Alum of the House Hokie, the First of His Name, Khal of the Turkey Legs, The rightful Heir to the Big Board, the Unbanned, Breaker of Trolls and Father of Gritty

The funny thing about the Power 6 rhetoric being thrown around by the American is that each and every one of those schools would leave in a heartbeat if they were offered by the P5. Sadly, that conference represents the dividing line from the last round of realignment. AAC schools either had no real geographic benefit to a P5 or were the small fish in states already dominated by P5 schools. You have to give UCF credit for what they have been able to accomplish, but they legitimately have a chance to go 28-0 over the past two years with a snowball's chance in hell of ever making the playoff. If ECU fans can't realize their true standing in the CFB landscape, they are sheerly delusional. Some comments from their fan base asserting that we are peers and have so much in common are clueless. Pretty much any similarity ended with our move to the Big East and rise in the early-mid 90s.

Having lived in Raleigh and worked with a number of ECU alumni, I can assure you that this statement is 800% correct. When I lived there, state politicians from eastern NC were pushing for a state mandate that UNC and NCSU play them every year, in football, basketball and baseball. They truly had the belief that the two largest public schools in the state were "afraid" to play them.

The only reason that ECU is as large a school as it is can be credited to their medical school. Before the med school opened, the eastern part of NC had a massive shortage of Dr and nurses, because very few graduates from other medical programs, in the state were willing to move to eastern NC.

I was doing my best to not make this explicit statement. With the exception of a few beach communities (but no one from those communities associates with the rest of the eastern part of the state), you hit the nail on the head.

I live 45 minutes outside of Greenville and I hate Virginia Tech Football is not playing at ECU next year. At the last VT v ECU game in Greenville, I scored seats in the ECU Chancellor's box for on $20 each on StubHub! Best game and seat combination ever! We took an elevator to our section and they brought us drinks and Chick-Filet sandwiches complimentary! Curiously, Whit walked out of the enclosed area with about 5 minutes to go and headed down the steps to the field. I wonder what happened?

Of the 100% of the fan-base that wanted the ECU series to end, I am part of that 1 +/- against ending it. For the next couple of years (and maybe longer), you could post a W on the ECU game because ECU will have to rebuild and they don't have a Lincoln Riley at OC. I hate it has come to this, but then, Whit does not have worry about living and working in Eastern NC or about travelling to see a game. Thanks Whit, this shit hole is more of a shit hole now.

I'm still staring, waiting for two bony hands to come out of her mouth and a skeleton with blazing eyes to pull himself through...

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

As I have said on this forum many times. There is no reason on earth for Virginia Tech football to play in Greenville against ECU. None. Nada. No good reason at all. It has never and will never "help recruiting", its a lose/lose scenario for VT and it unnecessarily gives a team in our region a marquee home game against an ACC team. If anything it helps ECU's recruiting- lol. Zero reason to ever play down there, and glad Whit realized that.